Tips From A Camera Owner

Let's get something straight, I do not consider myself a photographer of any level (beginner, amateur, hobbiest...).  I just happen to be a girl with a camera.  So if you are a photographer, the advice I'm about to offer is probably beneath you, but please feel free to chime in - I might learn something.

1.  Read the directions.  And in true QandleQueen fashion, I have already broken the rules starting with the first one.  I abhor directions.  And camera directions are littered with mumbo jumbo that I won't bother learning.  They are written by photographers for photographers, not us little people who need to know the difference between the various settings.  I have recently educated myself about "aperature" and something with a name that escapes me about refocusing so background lights become dots.  Okay, maybe I'm a "beginner" photographer.  That said, everyone insists it's really important to read the directions that come with your camera, so there, I said it.

2.  TAKE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU.  I cannot tell you how many times I whip out my little pocket camera and people around me sigh with relief that someone is going to capture the day's events.  I used to travel quite a bit and every so often I would see a tree (like I posted yesterday, I have a thing for trees) and think, wow, if only I had a camera with me...  Two years ago we bought a pocket camera and that puppy LIVES in my purse.  Of course there are times I forget to pull it out and miss a great moment.

3.  Take a lot of pictures.  Gone are the days where you waste film on crappy shots.  I take oooooodles of crappy shots.  Sheer volume will produce an accidental great shot.  Take those pictures.  Who cares if you chop off heads or have shaky hands.  Take them.

Speaking of chopping off heads, this one pisses me off, well... now I find it funny.  I'm on the right in the pink coat and in the fur, Geraldine Ferraro.  My photographer didn't even manage to capture us shaking hands!  GAH!

Had she kept clicking she might have accidentally got our faces!

4.  Keep your crappy shots.  Okay, maybe not all of them.  But at least some.  Please.  The historian/genealogist in me thanks you.

This picture isn't posed well, is out of focus and overall not really worthy of keeping.  But my great-grandmother held onto it just the same.  Actually most of her pictures are off-center and fuzzy, but they're all I have and I am very grateful.  This is my grandmother and her younger sister.  Isn't this absolutely PRECIOUS?  Besides capturing the sisters, it also caught the house where they grew up.  Now I can go back to the small town where she grew up and find that house.  A few years ago Grandma led us to a house she said was her grandparent's home.  I took a picture of it thinking it would match the house in this shot, but it does not.  Oh well.

5.  Play with the settings.  Maybe if you understand the photographer mumbu jumbo in the directions you won't need to "play" with the settings.  Me?  I have to tinker.  I mean, really, what's going to happen?  It's not like the camera is going to blow up...

Aw crap, let me go off on a tangent.  PLAY with all of your electronics.  Seriously, unless you physically force the parts to move in a direction they're not meant to move or you drop it, YOU CANNOT BREAK THE DAMN THING.  Turn the dials (don't force them), push the buttons, see what happens when you click this and try that.  People are so freaking SCARED of their electronics, afraid they'll make a mistake.  You know what?  WHO CARES.  Get over your bad self and give it a try.  You have MY permission.  Quit waiting for the experts.  Do you know HOW they became experts?  They got past that fear of screwing up.  This applies to cooking, computers, car radios, DVR, and photography.  TRY IT, YOU MIGHT LIKE IT.

Please, PLAY with your camera.

Now I am guilty of leaving my camera on one particular setting and about 90% of my shots are taken with that one singular setting.  In fact, I leave it on that setting so much that I fail to check if it got jostled in my purse and occasionally I end up using the record or panorama settings.  Ooops.

So here's one we've all had

The blurry night shot.  Actually I kept this one because I like the swirls (See?  Rule #4 keep some of your crappy shots).  The problem is that the lighting is so poor that the shutter stayed open too long.  Damn, I'm sounding like a photographer.  Sorry.

So I dicked around with the settings.  There is a "nighttime" setting, but it wasn't working for me.  Then, on a lark, I discovered a "candlelight" setting.  And THIS is what I got:

Huge improvement, huh?

So I tucked that in my memory and a few weeks later I used it again!

My grandson's Baptism was another low light event and no matter how much I fiddle with the focus, it just wasn't going to come out clear.

I flipped it over to the "candlelight" setting and got a couple of clear shots.  Before you get too excited about the quality of this picture, let me move onto the next piece of advice...

6.  Learn how to adjust the quality of pictures after you download them.  If you have a Mac I can give you all sorts of advice how to achieve this using the application "Preview" that comes already loaded on your computer.  I'm not sure what applications are available to Windows users.  Again, screw around with settings.  All of the professional photographer sites insist that you tweek your pictures.  I'm not super confident in this endeavor, but as always I'm willing to try.  The key to not screwing up a good picture is to duplicate the document and play on a copy.

So there you go, six easy steps to become a mediocre photographer.

Ice Storm 2006

Like I posted yesterday, there had been a major ice storm a few years ago.  It knocked out my power for a few days, but having experienced the same thing earlier that summer I didn't flip out.  I sent the kids to their dad's house and I hunkered down in front of my fireplace (man I miss having a fireplace).  For entertainment I visited a couple of local parks and captured the following shots.

These were taken at Sioux Passage Park, on the banks of the Missouri River.  The water was extremely low - not sure if you can tell where the water should be, but trust me that was VERY low.

Playing With Pictures

Oh the things we learn playing on the internets!  A few of the blogs I follow are photographers.  I have no illusions about my own abilities, nor do I ever intend to do anything other than just play with a camera - no professional aspirations here!  But I do enjoy seeing everyone else's work.  One of those blogs is by Krista Funk.  She has a cool border that she's been putting on her pictures and I wrote it off as some special program that she had.  Oh but no, yesterday she posted directions.

HMMMMMmmmm...

While I have photoshop, I find it a pain in the ass.  Oddly enough, I've fumbled my way through Quark plenty of times that I have been able to do a ton of photo editing.  I don't think it's supposed to be used this way, but who cares, it works.  Her photoshop directions were clear enough to transfer over to Quark and VOILA!

Here's the original:

And here's the result:

Yippee!!!!  Thank you Krista!